New Ulm weekly review., 1887-08-17
INDUSTRIAL TOPlUs.
Advantages Of Smoking and
Drying Meat as Practiced in
the Southern States.
Difficulties Most Western Farmers Will
Experience in Securing Food
for Their Stock.
Difficulties Most Western Farmers vii
Keeping Pork in Summer.

heep1ng FORK In SUNNI er.
No amount of writing or lecturing
will prevent pork from being the meat
generally used on farms during the
warm months of the year. Hogs are
raised on almost every farm in the
country, and they contain facilities for
slaughtering them and for preserving
their meat. This meat is convenient
for cooking in farm houses where soft
coal is generally employed for cooking
purposes. Pork can be fried or boiled
over a blazing fire, while GOALS are
needed for broiling beefsteaks or mutt
ton chops. The fat of pork is very
convenient for frying fish, eggs, pota-
toes, mush, batter-cakes, and many
kinds of vegetables. Dried beans are
cooked in NO way sowel;as by soaking,
parhoiling, and baking in connection
with tolerably Fat salt pork. For a
steady diet for field hands or for men
engaged in almost any kind of hard
work there is no kind of meat that
equals pork. lit is preferred by labor
ers in all parts of the world It is as
generally eaten by 'out-of-door laborers
in Cuba as in iceland. European and
American farmers who eat pork do four
times as much work as the natives of
India, whose principal food is rice.
1t is practical to cure pork in more
ways than beef and mutton, and there
by secure "a greater variety of havors,
Pork is delicious and tender when
cured and cooked in almost any man
,ner. There is hardly any waste about
a dressed hog. 1t is true that good
soup can be made of the bones and the
meat that adheres to them, as is the
case with fowls, beef, and mutton, but
the head and feet deservedly rank
among the table delcacies. For eating
during warm weather there are few
kinds of meat that will compare with
boiled ham, unlesssit be boiled shoulder,
which IS IN some respects superior.
Fora breakfast dish there is no meat
superior to side bacon, cut in thin
slices. and fried or broiled. It contains
the desired proportions of fat and lean
meat, is tender, and has an appetiz.ng
flavor. Sausage, which is generally
made of scraps of pork and favored
with herbs raised in the garden, is one
of the cheapest, as it is one of the best
kinds of meat food. Pork can be pre-
pared for the table with less trouble
and cost than any kind of meat. A
? considerable amount of good butter
must be used in cooking or favoring a
beefsteak or a mutton-chop but ham,
bacon, picked pork, or sausage is
cooked in the fat it affords.
Though pork is'more easily preserv-
ed for use during warm weather than
beef and mutton there is some trouble
intkeepng it, if the heat is as great as
it is the present summer. Farmers in
the'north may learn much from those
in n'the>south in relation to curing the
flesh of the hog. The custom of smok-
ing, as well as of-salting and sugarng
the meat, is general there. Almost
every'part of the hog is treated with
dry sugar and salt and then hung in
the >smoke-house for additional curing.
1t is never placed in. brine, and care is
taken to get as much moisture out of
it as possible. The, drysalt and sugar
that: are applied to- the surface of the
meat attract much blood and moisture,
which are drained off before the pieces
are hung in the smoke-house. In this
building the process, of drying goes on
in connection with that of smoking.
The weight of the meat is largely re-
duceu, but nothing is lost except moist
ure. The smoking and drying continue
for several weeks after the meat is
first hung up, and are repeated at in
terVals throughout the year. Every
portion,o of the meat is delicately flavor
ed with the smoke produced by burn
ing hickory bark or corn-cobs.
Pork,cured in this way is not likely
to spoil if kept for many years. The
only danger arises from insects that
may deposit their eggs: in the meet DUR
ing warm weather if they gain access
Itolit. They will not enter smoke
house if it is kept dark. If it is desir-
ed to;talze the meat from the smoke
honse, it can be protected from insects
byMrapping each piece in paper, or by
covering it with cloth to which ceat-
ing of starch or flour paste is applied.
The smoked meat covered as recon-
mended can be hung in an open garnet
OF placed on shelves. where it will keep
an indefinite length of time without liza
bility to injury. If it lis placed in "a
damp 0r runyentilated room or in Gel
lar it aMay absorb moistlare and have Its
surface covered with mold. In most
European countries old bacon is pre-
terred to New. 1t contains less M oist-
ure, is naons tender, and has a better
flavor. The smoked meat prepared in
our great packing establishments does
not possess good keeping qualities. It
us salted by iaamersing it in brine, and
is smoked only long enough 80 give its
surface light cinnamon color. Care
is taken to keep all the moistnse in it in
order to give it weigh t.
Picked pork is much more common
Shan dry -salted and smoked saeat in
I the northern states. If sufficient care
is taken it is not very difficult to keep
salt pork sweet. On account of lack Of
care and improper place for storage
large quantities, however, are lost